


Detritus. ( Max Rockatansky/Reader. )

by stebenne



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, At this point I'm just trying to elongate the tags man, Explicit Language, Furiosa is her own tag, Gunshot Wounds, Mild Gore, Mild Sexual Content, Other, Post-Mad Max: Fury Road, Pre-Mad Max: Fury Road, Rating: M, The reader is so done, We've got both, max rockatansky/reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:50:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13761579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stebenne/pseuds/stebenne
Summary: You're not someone who does something with a specific purpose in mind. With a hidden agenda. You give food to hungry people because they're hungry. You give water to thirsty people because they're thirsty. You help people who need help. Even if they just threatened to shoot you and likely would have robbed you blind if it wasn't for the gaping whole in their stomach.





	Detritus. ( Max Rockatansky/Reader. )

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first long term and planned out fic! I loved Mad Max: Fury Road and just had to write this. Please comment and give me some constructive criticism regarding my writing!

You could barely remember a time before sand. The gritty, hellish landscape you inhabited now was not the one you were born into, but none of the sentiment surrounding the environment of your birth ever really showed in your actions. 

Your mother, on the other hand, yearned for the days long gone so dearly that the early stories and the triumphs of the name of the country you walked on was engraved into your memory. If not out of your genuine interest in them, then for the respect you held for your mom and her own love of the tales. Australia, she had said. You had only heard of the name from her. You figured that everyone else on your island had been born never hearing the name of their own country and those that did remember preferred not too. 

Her mushy bittersweet nationalism was overbearing at times, but even from a young age you knew that she was simply doing her best to make sure that everything bad that you saw or experienced could be countered with hope, with remembrance that things used to be different, better. It took you years to figure that hope that was left in the past had no business meddling with the present. 

Your father never took part in your mother’s efforts. Although he knew the stories just as well as she did. If anything, your father actively opposed your mother in how you were raised. Your mother wanted you to be kind, while your father urged you to be strong. 

At the age of ten, after the world went to shit, your father decided to settle your family in a bungalow in what was then considered to be Western Australia. 

Your dad was a hunter, a scavenger and a disagreeable one at that. Your mother, however, was able to set up her own small garden in your makeshift home. When the animals all began to die out and the definition of hunting turned to either cannibalism or digging dubious insects out of the ground, both you and your father were grateful for her and the produce.

At age eleven, you ran out of the water you had all taken with you when the city you had lived in became too dangerous. Nothing was alive in the Badlands, not even a cactus could survive the smoldering hot temperatures. The fear of death weighed heavy on you, and your mother and father frantically invested their time into making a well. With your help, you all found clay ten feet into the ground. Five feet below it was a reserve of water. Your mother had sobbed in relief. The tears refused to come to you. You had spent the previous two days of dehydration forcing tears from yourself so you could lick the liquid gold off of your sun – burned and cracked cheeks. 

At age thirteen, your father had been killed by Buzzards. A motorcycle gang that also inhabited the Badlands. They had always previously left your family alone, but they were unpredictable and your father was proud. Too volatile. Confrontation always led to more conflict with him. After a week of his absence, you and your mother had set out to find him. Sure enough, you did. Or what remained of him and his bike. The guzzoline had been sucked out of the motorbike, and as your mother screamed and cried, you picked up the parts for re-assembly. You made no effort to shush her, the forced ministration too heavy to complete. 

At age fourteen, you taught yourself how to shoot a rifle. Your father had already taught you how to handle smaller weapons, but his death left you three automatic rifles, ammo and heavy bruises in your shoulders from the recoil of the damned things. 

And at age seventeen, your mother died. She had been refusing both food and sleep, opting instead for heat fever daydreams. You didn’t cry for your father when he left, but when your mother passed, your throat went raw from the aftermath of your sobs and your head went light with the pain of it all. For the first time in your life you were all alone. 

The next three years were full of close calls. Your bungalow was the only known neutral territory positioned right between the Citadel and the Buzzard run Badlands. To get bullets or guzzoline, you often had to go to each of the place’s respective towns to get the things you needed. Coming with just one or two Heirloom Tomatoes and a bottle of water got you much of what you required. But still, you often crossed paths with Warboys and Buzzards on the way. You did your best to stay away from the Warboys, knowing that if they took just one look at you that they would attack and end up kidnapping you. They didn’t have any sort of rhyme or reason to them, instead just taking all that they saw in the name of Immortan Joe. And if they died? Whatever, the gates of Valhalla would welcome their bald heads and chrome teeth into their ranks anyways. The Buzzards, however, already had a history with you. They killed your father, but he had provoked them, or so they claimed to you. In short, relations were tense, but they rarely did anything without reason. 

Besides, you had no interest in starting a fight that you would surely lose. 

Crouching down, your dry ( skin tone ) hands came up to your goggles, thumbs winding around the lenses as to get the sand out of the loose areas where the glass met the black plastic frame that shaped your headwear. Sighing slightly, you drew yourself back up to your full height. “What do you want in exchange for this?” Accentuating towards the motorbike handles you had been eyeing, you rested your hands at your hips. 

The older man in front of you shrugged, completing a movement that managed to both be nonchalant and anxiety inducing. His eyes gleamed, and his hands reverently wrapped around the handlebar’s cool, engraved metal. “It’s been re-vamped! Completely re-decorated and upgraded, and the fine demands the fine! So, what’ve you got?” The man jittered. 

“Food and water.” You answered plainly, his actions too commonplace among Guzzoline Town for you to raise a brow at. 

The man’s eyes lit up. Typically, metal could be traded with other metals, you would get something you needed and so could the other person involved with the transaction. “Well now, don’t be stingy! Lemme seesie!” Craning his neck forward towards you, his eyes seemed to bulge out of his skull with the effort to see what you had not yet taken out of your bag. 

“I’ve got corn, beans and squash.” Holding each one up to the man, he nodded, head nearly falling off what with the strain he was putting on it. You also dug out a bottle of water that made the man gasp in shock. His reaction caused your head to shoot up and survey the area around you, forgetting that water was extremely hard to come by in small gulps. You had a whole bottle of it with you. 

“Aqua-Cola!” He cried, snatching it and the produce and eyeing it like he couldn’t quite believe his own eyes. Once he started to attract more attention, he fled, watching the people around him with paranoid eyes, sparing a few snarls at those that wandered too close. 

Not wanting to interrupt whatever it was he was doing, you grabbed the handlebars, using one hand to situate your goggles onto you face. Quickly exiting the shack the man operated out of, your gaze dropped to inspect the craftsmanship of the carvings on the curves of the part. It was laced with intricate designs of dogs and what looked like to be lotus blossoms. With a small smile, you imagined what it would be like to have a dog nowadays. You wouldn’t know what with never seeing one in your life. All you really had to prove that the animal even existed was the tool in your hands and the stories of your mom’s childhood Labrador; Redbeard.

Taking a turn down the rocky street, you spared one haphazard glance at a little boy leaning against a wooden building. He was small, too small for his stature. His hair should have been black, but the sand had clearly turned it brown. His skin was dry, and cracked in some places from the extreme dehydration. Some of the more serious cracks were red and looked to be infected, telling by the dried pus that coagulated around the wounds. He didn’t even lift his head to acknowledge your stare. 

Turning your head away from him, you knew that one act of kindness would not be enough to save this boy. He needed some type of fucking miracle, one that Guzzoline Town did not have nor would give. And he seemed to know that, judging by the pitiful hang of his head. In fact, giving this boy food and water would really only prolong the inevitable, not to mention the flocks of people that would try to get left-overs out of you if they saw you with this boy – 

You didn’t even register your movement until you were crouched down before the boy, hands reaching up to rest your goggles on your forehead. Not saying a word, you grabbed your second small water bottle from your knapsack, offering it and a couple husks of corn to him. 

Judging by the boy’s expression, he clearly wasn’t used to people offering him food. He said nothing, he probably couldn’t you reflected, but raised a hand out to take the goods anyways. 

“Don’t purge yourself,” You murmured to him, your own ( eye color ) eyes trained on the boy’s greens. “You see that woman over there?” Pointing to a middle-aged red – head across the street, the boy followed your finger and nodded. You continued. “Now listen, she works in drilling the Earth for guzzoline. She’ll need a set of small hands to operate the mechanics. Go talk to her, and tell her that ( name’s ) cashing in on her favor and to give you shelter.” 

The boy nodded, eyes wide, as he quickly took a swig of the water, before taking it and the corn as he scampered after the red – head, sparing you one last look of gratitude that had the smile on your face grow tenfold. You’d have to come back soon, and talk to the red-head, Ombrosa, about how he was doing soon. 

Idiot. A snide voice in the back of your head snarled. Making yourself known to the general public was a bad idea, and you knew that. But you were weak when it came to the dehydrated and desperate. Unluckily for you, that was most of today’s population. 

You were home just as the moon became level with the sky. Eyes scanning the horizon behind your goggles, you noticed an overwhelming wall of sand coming in from the east. From the looks of it, it was hurling right towards the Citadel and if you were lucky, it would avoid you altogether. 

Your thoughts were interrupted by a deep and rather gritty voice. “Put your hands up.” A downpour of curses rang in your head. How did you not hear someone sneaking up behind you? Shit, he was in pain too, you could tell by his tone of voice. He needed supplies, your supplies. Wait, you were facing away from the bungalow. That meant that the man had either snuck around you, without you noticing. You would like to think that would be would be impossible, so that meant that he had already been through the bungalow. Your garden, your ammunition, your water. You wanted to scream. What’s the easiest way to get something? The voice in your head taunted. Well, take it from someone who already has it!

Finally relinquishing yourself from your thoughts, you stretched your hands into the air, a sour expression decorating your features as you turned around. 

The man that stood in front of you was hairy. That was the first thing you noted. His beard was tragically grown out, along with his hair. Only his eyes could truly be seen. The second was that he was indeed hurt. You recognized your bandages wrapped around his midsection, though it didn’t do much to stop the overflowing blood that escaped from his abdomen. He was well built, and hadn’t eaten in a long time, you could tell as much from the state of his beard. You watched him, eyes narrowed and waiting for his next move as he opened his mouth. But no words came out of his mouth. Instead, his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he slumped to the ground. Your mouth opened, and just as quickly closed as you put your hands down, peering at him. Rubbing your eyes in irritation, you knew if you didn’t address his wounds properly, he would die. Crouching beside him, you raised a brow at the stranger, contemplating what to do.


End file.
